LGBTQ+ Syria: Experiences, Challenges, and Priorities for the Aid Sector

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LGBTQ+ Syria: Experiences, Challenges, and Priorities for the Aid Sector LGBTQ+ Syria: Experiences, Challenges, and Priorities for the Aid Sector June 2021 Syrian journalists and rights advocates display Government of Syria and Syrian opposition flags during a Pride event in Istanbul, suggesting that homophobic attitudes exist across political and ideological lines. Image courtesy of Bradley Secker. LGBTQ+ Syria: 2 Experiences, Challenges, and Priorities for the Aid Sector Contents 3 Executive Summary 4 LGBTQ+ Syrians: An Overlooked Minority Group 4 LGBTQ+ Experiences after 2011 5 Government of Syria 5 Armed Opposition Groups 7 Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria 8 The Syrian LGBTQ+ Community in Countries of Asylum 12 Challenges 12 Legal Challenges 14 Social and Societal Challenges 15 Security and Protection 16 Politics 17 Healthcare 18 Mental Health 18 Economics and Labour 19 Aid 19 Recommendations 19 Boost Healthcare 19 Bolster Sexual Health Education 20 Target LGBTQ+ Syrians for Mental Health and Psychosocial Support 20 Legal Barriers Are Unlikely to Fall Soon 20 Support Social Progress Where Possible 21 Increase Support for Livelihoods, Shelter, and Protection 21 Aid Actors Must Mainstream LGBTQ+ Sensitivity Procedures across Sectors 21 Prioritise LGBTQ+ Asylum Claims 22 Conduct More LGBTQ+ Research and Analysis LGBTQ+ Syria: 3 Experiences, Challenges, and Priorities for the Aid Sector Executive Summary review of relevant academic and sectoral literature, key-informant interviews (KIIs) with aid practitioners and LGBTQ+ Syrians, and the results of an online survey comprehensive study of LGBTQ+ Syria has yet to of 70 LGBTQ+ Syrians.3 Treating the conflict as a crit- be written. Although LGBTQ+ issues have come ical branch point in Syria’s recent social history, the A to the fore at various stages of the ongoing con- report details LGBTQ+ experiences in various zones of flict, gender and sexual minorities in Syria have more control and in main countries of asylum. It then docu- often than not been ignored and actively marginalised. ments the myriad challenges that face LGBTQ+ Syrians As a result, the impact of conflict-related violence on inside the country and abroad, including healthcare dis- LGBTQ+ persons and the resulting needs of LGBTQ+ parities, legal discrimination, social prejudice, and the beneficiaries have been kept out of view by what one unpreparedness of aid workers to meet resulting needs. advocate has described as “walls of silence”.1 This report Finally, it concludes with an extensive discussion of prac- is a preliminary attempt to rectify this oversight.2 Among tical recommendations for donor-funded aid activities the most pervasive misconceptions this research seeks to that can begin to address the needs of LGBTQ+ Syrians. correct is the widely held belief that LGBTQ+ issues are It is impossible to condense the full diversity of Syrian somehow of marginal importance in Syria. As explored LGBTQ+ experiences into a single report, let alone a below, the recognition of LGBTQ+ persons and their report of this length. Ultimately, it is our hope that this specific experiences of conflict is imperative not only research can serve as a conversation starter concerning for reasons of equality and social justice — the failure a dimension of Syrian life that is seldom acknowledged to bring these issues to attention also impedes effective and poorly understood.4 Only by beginning with a recog- donor-supported aid programming, political advocacy, nition of past and present blind spots can institutional and accountability. donors and implementers alike begin to address issues of importance to LGBTQ+ Syrians, whose marginalisation This paper provides a summary overview of LGBTQ+ in aid activities exacerbates conflict-related traumas and issues in wartime Syria. It is based on an extensive systemic needs. 1 Ayman Menem, “Voices breaking the silence: Fighting for personal freedoms and LGBTIQ rights in Syria,” Syria Untold (2020): https://syriauntold.com/2020/11/03/voices-breaking- the-silence/. 2 COAR is grateful for the input of LGBTQ+ interviewees, legal experts and advocates, NGO workers, and others who have contributed information for this report. COAR also wishes to extend special gratitude to Bradley Secker, whose photographs of LGBTQ+ Syrians bring a much-needed human dimension to this report. 3 Survey data provided to COAR for the purpose of preparing this report. Sample: 70 LGBTQ+ Syrians, aged 22-36 years old, residing in Turkey, Europe, and Canada, including 50 homosexual males, 18 transgender women, 2 homosexual women. The survey was conducted in Arabic via Facebook, and therefore represents an indicative, but scientifically non-representative sample. 4 Kyle Knight, “LGBT People in Emergencies — Risks and Service Gaps,” Human Rights Watch (20 May 2016): https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/05/20/lgbt-people-emergencies- risks-and-service-gaps. LGBTQ+ Syria: 4 Experiences, Challenges, and Priorities for the Aid Sector LGBTQ+ Syrians: to bear in Syria demonstrates unambiguously that the failure to incorporate LGBTQ+ perspectives throughout An Overlooked Minority contextual analysis and aid delivery has marginalised and ignored the needs of a considerable population Group group. Indeed, LGBTQ+ Syrians may be as numerous as ethnic or religious minority populations that are far more readily recognised within mainstream analysis and o reliable figures concerning the number of aid paradigms. That being said, LGBTQ+ status should LGBTQ+ Syrians exist. This data gap is more be approached as a cross-cutting identifier that overlaps N difficult to overcome because social, religious, with other aspects of identity (e.g. gender, sect, ethnicity, and historical factors can militate against self-identifica- tribe, political ideology) and serves as an important tion and disclosure of LGBTQ+ identity. In the absence factor that shapes the experiences and needs of individ- of reliable data and without a strong history of organ- uals and groups. ised pro-LGBTQ+ political mobilisation in Syria, the assumption that LGBTQ+ individuals are a marginal sub- group has become a default position for many Syrians. That assumption has, to some extent, been adopted by practitioners working within the Syria crisis response, including analysts, donors, and aid implementers. In response to this failing, reference can be made to the LGBTQ+ Experiences work of the Humanitarian Advisory Group and Heartland Alliance International, which are among the few actors after 2011 to have systematically considered LGBTQ+ issues in aid work, respectively assessing general humanitarian con- he ongoing conflict has affected the visibility, texts and the case of LGBTQ+ Syrians in Lebanon. They collective identity, and political agenda pursued advise that 5 percent should serve as a “conservative T by communities of LGBTQ+ Syrians, particularly rule of thumb” for the prevalence of sexual and gender those abroad. While LGBTQ+ issues were not a main- minorities among beneficiary populations.5 stay concern motivating the Syrian popular uprising in 2011, there was nonetheless cautious optimism that a Applying this rule of thumb in the case of Syria suggests pro-democracy movement predicated on the expansion that aid actors should plan to accommodate roughly of individual and collective rights could improve con- 1 million LGBTQ+ persons across all zones of control in ditions for LGBTQ+ Syrians. Following the onset of the the country, and more than a quarter-million such per- uprising in March 2011, some activists explicitly called sons in Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan. Interestingly, local for the inclusion of LGBTQ+ rights in the broad palette of sources and KIIs interviewed for this report almost uni- popular demands. In some sense, this was an inevitable versally dispute the validity of such a figure. They point result of the heavy involvement of LGBTQ+ individuals to factors such as the fluidity of identity, or contend that in Syria’s revolutionary political and social movements.7 Syria’s history, culture, or traditions mean that preva- However, others in the LGBTQ+ movement downplayed lence figures conceived in Europe or Asia, for instance, the pro-LGBTQ+ discourse as being unrealistic in the do not fit easily into the local context.6 In truth, it is next face of a political and armed struggle against Syria’s to impossible to test the accuracy of such an estimate authoritarian military establishment. To some extent, under current conditions in Syria, but arriving at a con- this view was validated as the Syrian uprising became clusive numeric figure is not necessary to determine that increasingly militarised and the LGBTQ+ community aid actors have consistently failed to meet the needs of became divided between Assad regime loyalists and the LGBTQ+ Syrians. Bringing current industry standards opposition.8 5 Heartland Alliance grounds its own recommendation in the work of the Humanitarian Advisory Group. “Taking Sexual and gender minorities out of the too-hard basket,” Humanitarian Advisory Group (2018): https://humanitarianadvisorygroup.org/insight/taking-sexual-and-gender-minorities-out-of-the-too-hard-basket/; “‘No place for people like you’: An analysis of the needs, vulnerabilities, and experiences of LGBTQ+ Syrian refugees in Lebanon,” Heartland Alliance International (2014): https://www.heartlandalliance.org/ wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2016/02/no-place-for-people-like-you_hai_2014.pdf. 6 Population-level estimates of LGTBQ+ populations in other countries range from 1.5 percent to more than 10 percent. Mona Chalabi,
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